Gavin Escuela

California Gov. Gavin Newsom attended Santa Clara University on a “partial baseball scholarship,” and as he told Liz Mullen of Sports Business Journal in 2019, “the only reason I am governor of California, the only reason you are talking to me right now, is because of baseball.” That same year, veteran California commentator Dan Walters advanced other reasons Gavin Newsom might be governor of California:

Newsom is succeeding someone who could be considered his quasi-uncle, since his inauguration continues the decades-long saga of four San Francisco families intertwined by blood, by marriage, by money, by culture and, of course, by politics – the Browns, the Newsoms, the Pelosis and the Gettys.

The connections date back at least 80 years, to when Jerry Brown’s father, Pat Brown, ran for San Francisco district attorney, losing in 1939 but winning in 1943, with the help of his close friend and Gavin Newsom’s grandfather, businessman William Newsom.

Fast forward two decades. Gov. Pat Brown’s administration developed Squaw Valley for the 1960s winter Olympics and afterward awarded a concession to operate it to William Newsom and his partner, John Pelosi.

One of the Pelosis’ sons, Paul, married Nancy D’Alesandro, who went into politics and has now reclaimed speakership of the House of Representatives. Another Pelosi son married William Newsom’s daughter, Barbara. Until they divorced, that made Nancy Pelosi something like an aunt by marriage to Gavin Newson (Nancy Pelosi’s brother-in-law was Gavin Newsom’s uncle).

The Brown-Newsom connection continued as Brown’s son, Jerry, reclaimed the governorship in 1974. He appointed the younger William Newsom, a personal friend and Gavin’s father, to a Placer County judgeship in 1975 and three years later to the state Court of Appeal.

Justice Newsom had been an attorney for oil magnate J. Paul Getty . . . While serving on the appellate bench in the 1980s, he helped Getty’s son, Gordon, secure a change in state trust law that allowed him to claim his share of a multi-heir trust.

After Newsom retired from the bench in 1995, he became administrator of Gordon Getty’s own trust. . .  The trust provided seed money for the PlumpJack chain of restaurants and wine shops that Newson’s son, Gavin, and Gordon Getty’s son, Billy, developed, the first being in a Squaw Valley hotel.

Gavin Newsom had been informally adopted by the Gettys after his parents divorced, returning a similar favor that the Newsom family had done for a young Gordon Getty many years earlier. Newsom’s PlumpJack business led to a career in San Francisco politics, a stint as mayor, the lieutenant governorship and now to the governorship, succeeding his father’s old friend. He’s keeping it all in the extended family.

All in the family and drenched in old money, Newsom claims “the only reason” he is governor is baseball. The coiffed Democrat recalls Saturday Night Live’s Chico Escuela (Garrett Morris) proclaiming “base-a-ball been very very good to me.” As for baseball’s actual influence on Gavin Newsom’s political career, a ballpark figure would be zero.